Valet - "Naked Acid"

Valet - "Kehaar" (Kranky 2008)

Valet – Naked Acid / Kranky

About halfway through “Drum Movie” – the second track on Valet’s sophomore release for Kranky Records – delicately crashing waves of static give way to the distant low end of tribal drums and a singular oncoming dither of guitar feedback. But out of this slightly unsettling aural tension, Honey Owens – the mastermind behind the moniker – layers three or four different synthesizer drones into this rippling wall of simultaneously pleasant and harsh frequency harmonics. While it eventually gives way to ghostly feminine mumbles and loose electric guitar noodles, that brief two minutes of pure sonic serenity completely envelops your senses. It’s kind of baffling how the simple layering of slightly wavering electrical oscillators could evoke such an emotional response, but it does and Owens knows just how to tease the frequencies into an aural bliss.

You can’t really listen to Valet without repeatedly referring back to Spacemen 3 (or at least I can’t). Owens just taps into so much of the English trio’s minimalist psychedelia: their reliance on just the right distortion to skew the guitar’s familiar sound, their grasp on how exactly to harness the harmonic overtones rather than the immediate amplified product, and their unpretentious approach to songwriting – i.e. taking a single chord, key or tempo and stretching it to it’s monochromatic limits.

Owens is certainly not a one-trick pony though, and her experience with Portland, Oregon’s kings of improvisation – Jackie-O Motherfucker – is permanently displayed in her solo material as well. Listening to one of the experimental rock group’s live extended jams is a paradoxical experience as it can lull you into a pleasant state of sonic euphoria even though the group often enlists the harsh sounds of free jazz to continuously mutate their sound. Owens doesn’t utilize as many horn squawks or minimalist freak-outs for her Valet output, but she certainly understands how to wrangle feedback and other amplified by-products into pleasant harmonics all their own.

Naked Acid rambles through a number of different approaches to her psychedelic landscapes. Where the aforementioned “Drum Movie” is built around the melting together of glacial soundscapes and brooding slabs of frequency icebergs, “Fire” sounds like the Velvet Underground holed up in a cabin somewhere in the rural regions of the Pacific Northwest. Owens’ linear songwriting is backed by deceptively simple and faintly atonal guitar playing, of which she teases each strand with a slightly wet mix of echo and wah-wah.

Fellow Portlandite Adrian Orange collaborates on the opening track, “We Went There”. With a delicate background of wind chimes and rain sticks, the two contrasting voices – Owens’ eased and hypnotic feminine coo and Orange’s ominous baritone – duet hauntingly among electric guitar scars and foggy feedback. And Mark Evan Burden of Silentist contributes drums to a number of songs as well, including the wonderful narcotic-friendly trip of “Kehaar”. Owens seduces every ounce of your attention like the most cunning of Homer’s sirens, at which point Burden’s steady snare rhythm locks in to guide your wayfaring ship directly into the rocky coast.

If 2007’s Blood is Clean introduced Valet as one of contemporary psychedelia’s most promising new entrants, Naked Acid solidifies the point. Like the previous release, it sidesteps any pretentiousness while still providing a challenging listen. Owens’ great sense for subtlety and texture in her songwriting and improvising as well as the degree of diversity throughout the record keeps the album continuously interesting after multiple listens. Consider Naked Acid yet another must hear in the Kranky catalog.